11 ms·

> You can't compete with the people who actually know how to make the things. Then you die. See Hewlett Packard. Innovation happens on the factory floor. Prett

by zelly 6y ago

> You can't compete with the people who actually know how to make the things. Then you die. See Hewlett Packard. Innovation happens on the factory floor. Pretty soon the countries we outsourced to will come up with better designs too. The U.S. thesis for outsourcing is that the manufacturing countries are filled with braindead automatons who can't compete with our "Designed in California". That may have been true in the 20th century when the U.S. brain drained all the top talent, but now other nations are in a position to pay their engineers more than U.S. companies. The "Designed in California" cope can only last so long.

cenal 6y ago
Don’t worry. Trump and his ilk are also making it harder for talent to come here from other countries. Stupid policies are basically the new norm in the USA.
pjmlp 6y ago
As someone that has worked for several years in this area with some major Asian offshoring IT shops, I have seen that mentality myself, although from European point of view. People that reach for this kind of decisions occasionally seem to still have a colonialism point of view, like "they will do as told and we still stay in control", except that isn't how things work and eventually they stand on their own feet and are able to even outperform their "masters".
- vanderZwan 6y ago
  > People that reach for this kind of decisions occasionally seem to still have a colonialism point of view, like "they will do as told and we still stay in control", except that isn't how things work and eventually they stand on their own feet and are able to even outperform their "masters". Oh man, the amount of Dutch "we're going to build a knowledge economy" news articles I've seen in the last decade that barely hide their colonial mindset is staggering, and the implied assumption that "we" are smarter than "them" is so blatantly racist that I'd almost feel offended if I didn't know that they'll reap what they sow with that attitude soon enough.
  - varjag 6y ago
    It's not just Dutch but been a prevailing tune in most of the Western Europe (outside perhaps Germany) for a couple decades now. And yes it stinks of "we'll live with the hard part of telling other people what to do".
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      >outside perhaps Germany You clearly haven't dealt with German managers at their companies operating in Eastern Europe ;)
      - vanderZwan 6y ago
        Technically that makes it a German company outside of Germany :p Jokes aside, "behaving badly abroad while showing their best behavior at home" is basically yet another proud colonial tradition, isn't it?
        ChuckNorris89 6y ago
        Like how the Swiss are considered the most civilized people in Europe ... until they go driving in Germany or go partying in Mallorca/Prague.
  - eecc 6y ago
    I can’t count the times I was greeted Maestro! by the typical blond middle-aged manager from Amsterdam... (I’m Italian, so I guess we’re all Pavarotti even without the waistline.) I’ve been toiling 10years in NL and I’ve yet to see anyone in the executive suite who’s not a Heineken buddy from the Universiteit
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      >I can’t count the times I was greeted Maestro! As an Eastern European immigrant, I can think of worse things you can be called in the West than Maestro!. You have no idea how good you have it.
- fsloth 6y ago
  "People that reach for this kind of decisions occasionally seem to still have a colonialism point of view, like 'they will do as told and we still stay in control', " It's not necessary colonialist as such, merely takes the past history as implications of future patterns. The so called colonialist powers were ahead in the game from 1700's up to the middle of the 20th century. Colonialism coincided with the rise of industrialization and science. The so called "colonized" nations did not have the chance to utilize these and rise up to their full human potential. I think a good historical example is that of Japan. Japan was effectively a medieval state in 1850 when the Perry expedition forced it to the modern era [0]. And 50 years later they beat a major world power in a technological military engagement in the Battle of Tsushima [1] against Russia! Gaining 500 years of advancements in technology in 50 years really amazing. But it really just reflects that we are all human, and all successes are due standing in the shoulder of past giants. And late comers to the game still have those same shoulder to stand on. I suppose, then, half a century - or, two generations - is a good rule of thumb on how long it takes for a sovereign power to play catchup and to leapfrog to current "state of the art" just as long as it has a functioning state. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima
  - lioeters 6y ago
    The historical example of Japan absorbing knowledge and technology, leap-frogging to the modern era, is a good support for your argument. There are fascinating artifacts from the period following Japan's opening up to foreign trade, reminiscent of European science in the Renaissance era - with an Asian twist. I'd like to point out though, that there was a steady "leak" of technology, or rather cultural exchange with the West, through the Dutch since the 17th century. Japan–Netherlands relations - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%E2%80%93Netherlands_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%E2%80%93Netherlands_rela... --- To return to the "leap-frogging to the modern era" - it seems that developing nations are all in the process of doing this. I recall reading how many African countries "skipped over" the building of traditional telephone infrastructure, and went staight to mobile. That also supports your argument that it only takes a couple generations for a country to catch up to modern standard of technology. But to surpass it, and become the leading edge, probably requires a bigger cultural change - to have an academic and business environment that fosters innovation. In that aspect, I think the U.S. has a lead in the world, and will continue to keep that competitive advantage for a while. It suggests that cultural (and perhaps social and psychological) change is harder to achieve than the knowledge transfer of technology.
- kritiko 6y ago
  When it applies to international business, it can be read as colonial extraction, sure, but I think this mentality is a core part of what's taught in business schools for the management of domestic workers as well. This is the basis of Frederick Taylor's "scientific management" and the raison d'etre of the modern corporate structure - lots of upper management whose job is to be the thinkers on behalf of the doers.
titzer 6y ago
Not only that, but the US political system moving towards a much stronger anti-immigrant stance is literally reversing the brain drain and kicking out the best part of that deal, the smart people.
- fastball 6y ago
  Which part of US politics is anti-immigrant? EDIT: have US politicians pushed reducing the number of visas granted per year and I'm unaware?
  - ekimekim 6y ago
    Yes, you're very unaware. Anti-immigration has been a signifigant part of the current administration's agenda (and longer term than that, politics in general on both sides of the aisle). I won't venture into the exact motivations for this stance (it's not helpful to the current discussion, and HN isn't really the best place for that kind of political talk) but the sheer pervasiveness and amount of vitriol behind it are the reason you're getting downvoted - it's hard to believe anyone legitimately hasn't seen it. Here's a quick selection of related articles. Apologies that some of these may be paywalled. Also this was just from random googling, so I haven't fully vetted these links for accuracy/bias. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/14/1005133/h1b-visa-stem-immigration-trump-restrictions-covid-19/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/14/1005133/h1b-visa... https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/politics/international-college-students-ice-online-learning/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/politics/international-colleg... https://www.wired.com/story/h-1b-visa-rejections-spike-under-trump/ https://www.wired.com/story/h-1b-visa-rejections-spike-under... (2018) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/21/us-immigration-policy-2018-travel-ban-migrant-caravan https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/21/us-immigrati... (2017) https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/top-10-2017-issue-1-under-trump-administration-united-states-takes-steps-narrow-legal https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/top-10-2017-issue-1-... (edited for formatting)
    - fastball 6y ago
      I've seen anti-illegal-immigration sentiment, absolutely. But what was said was "anti-immigration", which is not at all the same thing. Even if you think US border policy should be less strict/militarized, that isn't relevant to this discussion, as the number of undocumented migrants working in state-of-the-art chip design is approximately zero, and that's not because of their legal status, it is because skilled labor (which is obviously what is required for chip design/fab) is very capable of getting a visa to live in the US under the current (and previous) administrations. In fact, the current administration has said repeatedly and explicitly that they do not want to curb legal immigration, only undocumented/illegal migration.
ddorian43 6y ago
> but now other nations are in a position to pay their engineers more than U.S. companies. No. Please write 1 country.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  I've heard that "the Chinese FANG" is willing to pay similar money to real FAANG for talent. Can anyone confirm/deny?
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    I live in Shanghai. I will eat a live chicken if there are companies paying Bay Area salaries to software engineers, Baidu, Ali Baba and Tencent included in significant numbers. Zoom has its programmers in China because they can get the same value for 30% the cost. Even entry level finance doesn’t pay as well here as in the US. At the top it does because it’s finance, you eat what you kill but there are to my knowledge no markets equivalent to the US in software anywhere. That’s why people keep moving. It’s why Lambda School abandoned the EU and international expansion. There’s much, much more money in the US.
    - fiblye 6y ago
      What's the cost of living in Shanghai vs the Bay Area? I know people who live on a couple hundred bucks a month in Shanghai and I've had satisfying meals for $2 there. I think if companies were paying anywhere near half of what Apple, etc paid in California, people driven solely by money (emphasis here) would get by better in Shanghai. Right now, America's draw is living in America. People will take cuts to their actual earnings to live somewhere desirable. Whether America can hold onto that appeal in the coming decades is the big question. Money might not be enough to draw people in.
      - barry-cotter 6y ago
        Depending on what ranking you use the USA is 7th, 8th or 9th in GDP per capita. All the countries that are richer are somewhere in size between a US state and city, several of them are petro stateside city states and two, Ireland and Luxembourg, have grossly inflated GDP by virtue of having so many multinational subsidiaries there, who pay very little in tax and contribute little to GNP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28no... This understates how rich the US is. By household final consumption the only place richer is Hong Kong and the US has substantially smaller households. It’s an almost $10K drop to third place Switzerland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household_final_consumption_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household... What draws people to the US isn’t a small difference in money, it’s a lot of money. $100,000 a year would be great money for an individual contributor here, $200,000 for a new grad is where Google starts in the SFBA. There is a cost of living difference but it just doesn’t come anywhere close to wiping out the huge difference in compensation.
cm2187 6y ago
Still, as a trained engineer in the US+EU I went for a non engineering career out of university in the early 2000s as even here engineers are badly paid.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  Out of curiosity what career path did you choose? And where is here if I may ask?
  - cm2187 6y ago
    Finance in the UK
    - ajmadesc 6y ago
      As an American that just immigrated and graduated Uni this is really disheartening. I was planning on going into SWE in London. Is finance the better option? The market seems to be hot for developers.
      - cm2187 6y ago
        Yeah that was a decision made 20 years ago. I think developers can make similar salaries as people in finance (outside of a few hedge funds), particularly if you do contracting. Plus after the financial crisis, finance is a smaller club. But for other areas of engineering, I don’t think I would take a different decision now.
      - robotmay 6y ago
        Finance in London does pay well, but there are plenty of engineering opportunities as well. I would say that UK junior and mid engineer roles are in general worse-paid than in the USA, but senior roles are competitive. Getting a big salary straight out of uni is not something I've seen over here but you hear about it in California. If you're in London you have the benefit of a pretty thriving tech scene. If you want to look further afield then Bristol, Manchester, and Edinburgh seem to have a lot going on as well, and lower living costs.
raxxorrax 6y ago
> The U.S. thesis for outsourcing is that the manufacturing countries are filled with braindead automatons So Wall Street was serving here as a template too? But jest aside, if success isn't measured by long time goals we should have expected these results.
heavenlyblue 6y ago
> Innovation happens on the factory floor. I don't particularly miss the day of colonialism, however I just don't see innovation happening on the floor at a chip fab.
- drcross 6y ago
  It's got a stronger chance of occurring in the chip fab than in the CFO's office.
- jandrese 6y ago
  Practical experience matters even with high tech processes. People who live out in the abstract design space miss small but important details.
- cestith 6y ago
  There are many more layers of engineering in a modern CPU than designing the ISA, the hardware layout, and even the initial mask. Core designs can be licensed. The process is a big part of what makes a processor perform well. People engineer the cleanroom, the litho, the straining, the insulator layer, all sorts of things individually. Every part of a fab can be reengineered towards making a better, more consistent processor with better yields.
  - heavenlyblue 6y ago
    Are you implying these are local people making these adjustments at the fab?
    - cestith 6y ago
      Are you aware what sort of businesses Global Foundries, TSMC, and even the fabs of Samsung and TI are? Every part of the process has its own engineers. Some of them design the chip. Some of them design the fab. Some design the equipment in the fab. Some tweak the settings. All are willing, or should be, to take feedback on possible improvements and do small test runs between large batches. Anything that raises yields is a welcome improvement if it works.
skissane 6y ago
Different countries have different corporate cultures. Differences in corporate culture are partially caused by differences in national culture. And, although I acknowledge it is a sensitive topic, I think differences in culture between countries can lead to differences in economic competitiveness. The two countries I know the most about are my own (Australia), and the US. And I definitely see a lot of differences in corporate culture (willingness to take risk, thirst for innovation, etc) between the two countries, differences which generally come out in the US's favour. I remember Elon Musk saying that "the United States is the greatest country that's ever existed on earth". The US has lots of quite serious problems and in saying that Musk is choosing to ignore all those problems. (And at least some of the problems the US has are caused by distinctive aspects of US culture). But, look at SpaceX – probably in no other country on earth could SpaceX exist. Certainly I don't think anything like SpaceX could exist in Australia. Of course, the US has the advantage of 13 times more people. But, if you could imagine a country with the same population as the US but the same culture as Australia, I don't think anything like SpaceX could exist in that hypothetical country either. If Musk's dreams come true, SpaceX could turn out to be the most important company in human history thus far. (Of course, maybe his dreams won't come true – but I hope they do – I would love to live to see the day that humanity becomes a multi-planetary species.)
- growlist 6y ago
  Oh come on - plenty of other countries also had this spirit and capability until they were shut down by the US. At one point the UK for example was ahead of the US in many areas of aerospace, and so after direct threats from the US projects were canned, blueprints and jigs destroyed etc. The US detests a level playing field situation and often delivers inferior products when such a situation accidentally emerges.
  - skissane 6y ago
    Do you have some concrete evidence for the claim that other countries’ failures are due to being "shut down by the US"? Australia's failures in space aren't the fault of other countries, they are the fault of Australia. Australia's National Space Program (1986-1996) failed primarily due to chronic underfunding. That's not the fault of the US. And then Australia went over 20 years without any dedicated space agency – not the fault of the US either. And now Australia finally has one, it has a puny budget of approximately AU$10 million (around US$7 million) a year. If Australia was to spend as much on the Australian Space Agency (as a percentage of GDP) as the US spends on NASA, its budget would be over $1 billion a year. But it's not. Is that the fault of the US? If Australia decided to spend $1 billion a year on its space agency, I think NASA (and the US government more broadly) would be quite pleased. Australia could make some substantial contributions to one or more NASA programs. In the 1970s, Australia was an associate member of ELDO, one of the predecessor agencies of the European Space Agency. The ESA was happy to offer Australia a similar membership status in ESA, but Australia declined. Canada went ahead and remains a formal “cooperating state” of ESA to this day. The offer is still open - the ESA has said so publicly [1] - but Australia isn't interested in taking up the same status as Canada, primarily because it would require Australia to contribute financially to ESA projects (i.e. spend money on space, something Australia doesn't want to do). (I've heard the claim that the US pressured Australia not to become an associate ESA member, but I've never heard any actual evidence to support that claim; and did they pressure Canada not to have their current “cooperating” status?) [1] https://thewest.com.au/news/australia/europeans-offer-space-race-place-to-shy-aussies-ng-b88611809z https://thewest.com.au/news/australia/europeans-offer-space-...
dctoedt 6y ago
> Innovation happens on the factory floor. This! And more generally, innovation is more likely to come from people who are having to deal with messy reality. (See, e.g., the protocols for treating COVID-19 that have been figured out in emergency departments and ICUs all over the world.)
ptero 6y ago
> Pretty soon the countries we outsourced to will come up with better designs too. Which, to me, would be a very good thing, so I wish them the best of luck. Many large companies that exist because of an earlier lead (established decades ago) and high barriers to entry would benefit from hard competition. My 2c.

by zelly 6y ago

cenal 6y ago

Don’t worry. Trump and his ilk are also making it harder for talent to come here from other countries. Stupid policies are basically the new norm in the USA.

pjmlp 6y ago

As someone that has worked for several years in this area with some major Asian offshoring IT shops, I have seen that mentality myself, although from European point of view. People that reach for this kind of decisions occasionally seem to still have a colonialism point of view, like "they will do as told and we still stay in control", except that isn't how things work and eventually they stand on their own feet and are able to even outperform their "masters".

vanderZwan 6y ago
> People that reach for this kind of decisions occasionally seem to still have a colonialism point of view, like "they will do as told and we still stay in control", except that isn't how things work and eventually they stand on their own feet and are able to even outperform their "masters". Oh man, the amount of Dutch "we're going to build a knowledge economy" news articles I've seen in the last decade that barely hide their colonial mindset is staggering, and the implied assumption that "we" are smarter than "them" is so blatantly racist that I'd almost feel offended if I didn't know that they'll reap what they sow with that attitude soon enough.
- varjag 6y ago
  It's not just Dutch but been a prevailing tune in most of the Western Europe (outside perhaps Germany) for a couple decades now. And yes it stinks of "we'll live with the hard part of telling other people what to do".
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    >outside perhaps Germany You clearly haven't dealt with German managers at their companies operating in Eastern Europe ;)
    - vanderZwan 6y ago
      Technically that makes it a German company outside of Germany :p Jokes aside, "behaving badly abroad while showing their best behavior at home" is basically yet another proud colonial tradition, isn't it?
      - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
        Like how the Swiss are considered the most civilized people in Europe ... until they go driving in Germany or go partying in Mallorca/Prague.
- eecc 6y ago
  I can’t count the times I was greeted Maestro! by the typical blond middle-aged manager from Amsterdam... (I’m Italian, so I guess we’re all Pavarotti even without the waistline.) I’ve been toiling 10years in NL and I’ve yet to see anyone in the executive suite who’s not a Heineken buddy from the Universiteit
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    >I can’t count the times I was greeted Maestro! As an Eastern European immigrant, I can think of worse things you can be called in the West than Maestro!. You have no idea how good you have it.
fsloth 6y ago
"People that reach for this kind of decisions occasionally seem to still have a colonialism point of view, like 'they will do as told and we still stay in control', " It's not necessary colonialist as such, merely takes the past history as implications of future patterns. The so called colonialist powers were ahead in the game from 1700's up to the middle of the 20th century. Colonialism coincided with the rise of industrialization and science. The so called "colonized" nations did not have the chance to utilize these and rise up to their full human potential. I think a good historical example is that of Japan. Japan was effectively a medieval state in 1850 when the Perry expedition forced it to the modern era [0]. And 50 years later they beat a major world power in a technological military engagement in the Battle of Tsushima [1] against Russia! Gaining 500 years of advancements in technology in 50 years really amazing. But it really just reflects that we are all human, and all successes are due standing in the shoulder of past giants. And late comers to the game still have those same shoulder to stand on. I suppose, then, half a century - or, two generations - is a good rule of thumb on how long it takes for a sovereign power to play catchup and to leapfrog to current "state of the art" just as long as it has a functioning state. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tsushima
- lioeters 6y ago
  The historical example of Japan absorbing knowledge and technology, leap-frogging to the modern era, is a good support for your argument. There are fascinating artifacts from the period following Japan's opening up to foreign trade, reminiscent of European science in the Renaissance era - with an Asian twist. I'd like to point out though, that there was a steady "leak" of technology, or rather cultural exchange with the West, through the Dutch since the 17th century. Japan–Netherlands relations - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%E2%80%93Netherlands_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%E2%80%93Netherlands_rela... --- To return to the "leap-frogging to the modern era" - it seems that developing nations are all in the process of doing this. I recall reading how many African countries "skipped over" the building of traditional telephone infrastructure, and went staight to mobile. That also supports your argument that it only takes a couple generations for a country to catch up to modern standard of technology. But to surpass it, and become the leading edge, probably requires a bigger cultural change - to have an academic and business environment that fosters innovation. In that aspect, I think the U.S. has a lead in the world, and will continue to keep that competitive advantage for a while. It suggests that cultural (and perhaps social and psychological) change is harder to achieve than the knowledge transfer of technology.
kritiko 6y ago
When it applies to international business, it can be read as colonial extraction, sure, but I think this mentality is a core part of what's taught in business schools for the management of domestic workers as well. This is the basis of Frederick Taylor's "scientific management" and the raison d'etre of the modern corporate structure - lots of upper management whose job is to be the thinkers on behalf of the doers.

titzer 6y ago

Not only that, but the US political system moving towards a much stronger anti-immigrant stance is literally reversing the brain drain and kicking out the best part of that deal, the smart people.

fastball 6y ago
Which part of US politics is anti-immigrant? EDIT: have US politicians pushed reducing the number of visas granted per year and I'm unaware?
- ekimekim 6y ago
  Yes, you're very unaware. Anti-immigration has been a signifigant part of the current administration's agenda (and longer term than that, politics in general on both sides of the aisle). I won't venture into the exact motivations for this stance (it's not helpful to the current discussion, and HN isn't really the best place for that kind of political talk) but the sheer pervasiveness and amount of vitriol behind it are the reason you're getting downvoted - it's hard to believe anyone legitimately hasn't seen it. Here's a quick selection of related articles. Apologies that some of these may be paywalled. Also this was just from random googling, so I haven't fully vetted these links for accuracy/bias. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/14/1005133/h1b-visa-stem-immigration-trump-restrictions-covid-19/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/14/1005133/h1b-visa... https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/politics/international-college-students-ice-online-learning/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/politics/international-colleg... https://www.wired.com/story/h-1b-visa-rejections-spike-under-trump/ https://www.wired.com/story/h-1b-visa-rejections-spike-under... (2018) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/21/us-immigration-policy-2018-travel-ban-migrant-caravan https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/21/us-immigrati... (2017) https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/top-10-2017-issue-1-under-trump-administration-united-states-takes-steps-narrow-legal https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/top-10-2017-issue-1-... (edited for formatting)
  - fastball 6y ago
    I've seen anti-illegal-immigration sentiment, absolutely. But what was said was "anti-immigration", which is not at all the same thing. Even if you think US border policy should be less strict/militarized, that isn't relevant to this discussion, as the number of undocumented migrants working in state-of-the-art chip design is approximately zero, and that's not because of their legal status, it is because skilled labor (which is obviously what is required for chip design/fab) is very capable of getting a visa to live in the US under the current (and previous) administrations. In fact, the current administration has said repeatedly and explicitly that they do not want to curb legal immigration, only undocumented/illegal migration.

ddorian43 6y ago

> but now other nations are in a position to pay their engineers more than U.S. companies. No. Please write 1 country.

burntoutfire 6y ago
I've heard that "the Chinese FANG" is willing to pay similar money to real FAANG for talent. Can anyone confirm/deny?
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  I live in Shanghai. I will eat a live chicken if there are companies paying Bay Area salaries to software engineers, Baidu, Ali Baba and Tencent included in significant numbers. Zoom has its programmers in China because they can get the same value for 30% the cost. Even entry level finance doesn’t pay as well here as in the US. At the top it does because it’s finance, you eat what you kill but there are to my knowledge no markets equivalent to the US in software anywhere. That’s why people keep moving. It’s why Lambda School abandoned the EU and international expansion. There’s much, much more money in the US.
  - fiblye 6y ago
    What's the cost of living in Shanghai vs the Bay Area? I know people who live on a couple hundred bucks a month in Shanghai and I've had satisfying meals for $2 there. I think if companies were paying anywhere near half of what Apple, etc paid in California, people driven solely by money (emphasis here) would get by better in Shanghai. Right now, America's draw is living in America. People will take cuts to their actual earnings to live somewhere desirable. Whether America can hold onto that appeal in the coming decades is the big question. Money might not be enough to draw people in.
    - barry-cotter 6y ago
      Depending on what ranking you use the USA is 7th, 8th or 9th in GDP per capita. All the countries that are richer are somewhere in size between a US state and city, several of them are petro stateside city states and two, Ireland and Luxembourg, have grossly inflated GDP by virtue of having so many multinational subsidiaries there, who pay very little in tax and contribute little to GNP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28no... This understates how rich the US is. By household final consumption the only place richer is Hong Kong and the US has substantially smaller households. It’s an almost $10K drop to third place Switzerland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household_final_consumption_expenditure_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_household... What draws people to the US isn’t a small difference in money, it’s a lot of money. $100,000 a year would be great money for an individual contributor here, $200,000 for a new grad is where Google starts in the SFBA. There is a cost of living difference but it just doesn’t come anywhere close to wiping out the huge difference in compensation.

cm2187 6y ago

Still, as a trained engineer in the US+EU I went for a non engineering career out of university in the early 2000s as even here engineers are badly paid.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
Out of curiosity what career path did you choose? And where is here if I may ask?
- cm2187 6y ago
  Finance in the UK
  - ajmadesc 6y ago
    As an American that just immigrated and graduated Uni this is really disheartening. I was planning on going into SWE in London. Is finance the better option? The market seems to be hot for developers.
    - cm2187 6y ago
      Yeah that was a decision made 20 years ago. I think developers can make similar salaries as people in finance (outside of a few hedge funds), particularly if you do contracting. Plus after the financial crisis, finance is a smaller club. But for other areas of engineering, I don’t think I would take a different decision now.
    - robotmay 6y ago
      Finance in London does pay well, but there are plenty of engineering opportunities as well. I would say that UK junior and mid engineer roles are in general worse-paid than in the USA, but senior roles are competitive. Getting a big salary straight out of uni is not something I've seen over here but you hear about it in California. If you're in London you have the benefit of a pretty thriving tech scene. If you want to look further afield then Bristol, Manchester, and Edinburgh seem to have a lot going on as well, and lower living costs.

raxxorrax 6y ago

> The U.S. thesis for outsourcing is that the manufacturing countries are filled with braindead automatons So Wall Street was serving here as a template too? But jest aside, if success isn't measured by long time goals we should have expected these results.

heavenlyblue 6y ago

> Innovation happens on the factory floor. I don't particularly miss the day of colonialism, however I just don't see innovation happening on the floor at a chip fab.

drcross 6y ago
It's got a stronger chance of occurring in the chip fab than in the CFO's office.
jandrese 6y ago
Practical experience matters even with high tech processes. People who live out in the abstract design space miss small but important details.
cestith 6y ago
There are many more layers of engineering in a modern CPU than designing the ISA, the hardware layout, and even the initial mask. Core designs can be licensed. The process is a big part of what makes a processor perform well. People engineer the cleanroom, the litho, the straining, the insulator layer, all sorts of things individually. Every part of a fab can be reengineered towards making a better, more consistent processor with better yields.
- heavenlyblue 6y ago
  Are you implying these are local people making these adjustments at the fab?
  - cestith 6y ago
    Are you aware what sort of businesses Global Foundries, TSMC, and even the fabs of Samsung and TI are? Every part of the process has its own engineers. Some of them design the chip. Some of them design the fab. Some design the equipment in the fab. Some tweak the settings. All are willing, or should be, to take feedback on possible improvements and do small test runs between large batches. Anything that raises yields is a welcome improvement if it works.

skissane 6y ago

Different countries have different corporate cultures. Differences in corporate culture are partially caused by differences in national culture. And, although I acknowledge it is a sensitive topic, I think differences in culture between countries can lead to differences in economic competitiveness. The two countries I know the most about are my own (Australia), and the US. And I definitely see a lot of differences in corporate culture (willingness to take risk, thirst for innovation, etc) between the two countries, differences which generally come out in the US's favour. I remember Elon Musk saying that "the United States is the greatest country that's ever existed on earth". The US has lots of quite serious problems and in saying that Musk is choosing to ignore all those problems. (And at least some of the problems the US has are caused by distinctive aspects of US culture). But, look at SpaceX – probably in no other country on earth could SpaceX exist. Certainly I don't think anything like SpaceX could exist in Australia. Of course, the US has the advantage of 13 times more people. But, if you could imagine a country with the same population as the US but the same culture as Australia, I don't think anything like SpaceX could exist in that hypothetical country either. If Musk's dreams come true, SpaceX could turn out to be the most important company in human history thus far. (Of course, maybe his dreams won't come true – but I hope they do – I would love to live to see the day that humanity becomes a multi-planetary species.)

growlist 6y ago
Oh come on - plenty of other countries also had this spirit and capability until they were shut down by the US. At one point the UK for example was ahead of the US in many areas of aerospace, and so after direct threats from the US projects were canned, blueprints and jigs destroyed etc. The US detests a level playing field situation and often delivers inferior products when such a situation accidentally emerges.
- skissane 6y ago
  Do you have some concrete evidence for the claim that other countries’ failures are due to being "shut down by the US"? Australia's failures in space aren't the fault of other countries, they are the fault of Australia. Australia's National Space Program (1986-1996) failed primarily due to chronic underfunding. That's not the fault of the US. And then Australia went over 20 years without any dedicated space agency – not the fault of the US either. And now Australia finally has one, it has a puny budget of approximately AU$10 million (around US$7 million) a year. If Australia was to spend as much on the Australian Space Agency (as a percentage of GDP) as the US spends on NASA, its budget would be over $1 billion a year. But it's not. Is that the fault of the US? If Australia decided to spend $1 billion a year on its space agency, I think NASA (and the US government more broadly) would be quite pleased. Australia could make some substantial contributions to one or more NASA programs. In the 1970s, Australia was an associate member of ELDO, one of the predecessor agencies of the European Space Agency. The ESA was happy to offer Australia a similar membership status in ESA, but Australia declined. Canada went ahead and remains a formal “cooperating state” of ESA to this day. The offer is still open - the ESA has said so publicly [1] - but Australia isn't interested in taking up the same status as Canada, primarily because it would require Australia to contribute financially to ESA projects (i.e. spend money on space, something Australia doesn't want to do). (I've heard the claim that the US pressured Australia not to become an associate ESA member, but I've never heard any actual evidence to support that claim; and did they pressure Canada not to have their current “cooperating” status?) [1] https://thewest.com.au/news/australia/europeans-offer-space-race-place-to-shy-aussies-ng-b88611809z https://thewest.com.au/news/australia/europeans-offer-space-...

dctoedt 6y ago

> Innovation happens on the factory floor. This! And more generally, innovation is more likely to come from people who are having to deal with messy reality. (See, e.g., the protocols for treating COVID-19 that have been figured out in emergency departments and ICUs all over the world.)

ptero 6y ago

> Pretty soon the countries we outsourced to will come up with better designs too. Which, to me, would be a very good thing, so I wish them the best of luck. Many large companies that exist because of an earlier lead (established decades ago) and high barriers to entry would benefit from hard competition. My 2c.